Cesium-137 versus X-ray irradiation preconditioning in immunodeficient NOG mice

In this study is directly compared 350 kV X-ray and Cs-137 low-dose precondition of NOG mice before human stem cell transplantation. Based on flow cytometry data, the researchers found that engraftment of human cells into the mouse bone marrow was similar between radiation sources. Likewise, human engraftment in the peripheral blood was comparable between Cs-137 and three different X-ray doses with equal chimerization kinetics. In primary lymphoid organs such as the thymus and lymph nodes, and spleen, liver and lung, human-to-mouse chimerization was also comparable between irradiation sources. Development of different CD4 and CD8 T cells as well as these cells’ maturation stages, i.e. from naïve to effector and memory subsets were generally analogous. Based on their results, they conclude that there are no discernable differences between the two sources in the low-dose spectrum investigated. However, while they encourage the transition to X-ray-based sources, they recommend all research groups to consider technical specifications and dose-finding studies.

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